20 Books of Summer 2022: Artistic Licence by Katie Fforde

Thea was standing in the rubbish bin, trying to crush its contents enough to get the lid on, when she heard people approaching…

This very first sentence of Katie Fforde’s seventh novel should’ve warned me off. I suppose it’s meant to tell us that our heroine is one of those women who look cute in dungarees and always have paint attractively daubed on their noses – ‘oh she’s so scatty, but isn’t she just adorable?’  All is says to me, cynic that I am, is that Thea could simply have emptied that bin, and that I am already being manipulated.

After a ‘betrayal’ which really isn’t the big deal we are meant to believe it is, Thea jacked in a respectable career as a photo journalist in London, moved to Cheltenham, bought a big house and let most of the rooms to students. Here she is being a scatter-brained landlady! Here she is deliberately setting off the fire alarm to get someone (‘a dear friend’ – because to people like her, a ‘dear friend' is code for ‘annoying bore’) off the phone. And here she is falling off a ladder and having to be rescued by the man who ‘hates’ her!  What an airhead!

When rich friend Molly asks Thea to join her on an all expenses paid art appreciation holiday, she has no problem in leaving everything behind her to sally off to Aix en Provence. Though of course she takes hardly any clothes (so scatty!) and doesn’t worry about insurance or E111 cards.

In France she and Molly come across Rory, a handsome, wild, amoral artist. It goes without saying that Rory wants to bed Thea at the first opportunity – after all, she’s so attractive/alternative/scatty, which drop dead hunk wouldn’t?  He gives her his address and invites her to visit him in Mayo. Of course she’d never do a reckless thing like that, now would she?

On landing back in the UK, Thea learns that her lodgers have had a party and trashed her house. What would you, dear reader, do? Rush back to Cheltenham, read the riot act and sort out the mess? Oh but how boring! That’s not what kooky people like Thea do! No – they spend money they don’t have on the next flight to that airport up at Knock, and are soon ensconced in Rory’s scenic love nest, adjacent to a fabulous beach on Ireland’s Atlantic shore. Well he is a struggling artist after all. Like Thea (minimum price for a big 5 bed house in Cheltenham approx. £750,000, I've just checked – and yes I know this was written in 2001, but still…) , he can’t afford much.

Before I am accused of shredding a much loved genre, let me tell you that I like a good romance as much as the next person.  I recently enjoyed The Bookshop of Second Chances (Jackie Fraser), and A Cornish Summer (Catherine Alliott) and I love Harriet (Jilly Cooper); all of these books depend on unlikely coincidences, of course they do. The trouble is that Artistic Licence isn’t a good romance. It feels more like a mish mash of all the tropes Fforde likes to throw into her books; rich friends, big houses, cute children, sweet dogs (there’s an ongoing plot line about Rory’s pregnant dog and then her puppies. Will the adorable little runt survive? Guess, why don't you?…) and ditzy women – but in this case none of them convinces, even within the very flexible boundaries of romantic fiction.

In Ireland Thea refuses to sleep with Rory, but soon discovers his work – huge landscapes that she 'just knows’ are masterpieces, despite knowing nothing whatsoever about art. Rory plans to send them to an American gallery because - owing, we are told,  to his drunken behaviour at his first ever show - he's been blacklisted by the arty cognoscenti. (Since when exactly has an artist’s behaviour ever hampered their career? Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Caravaggio – well, no one’s ever heard of them, have they?) Thea, however is determined to get them shown in the UK, or, as she repeatedly says, ‘to keep them in Britain.’ The fact that Rory actually lives in the Irish Republic doesn’t seem to have crossed the author’s mind.

And as if by magic along comes (i) Molly’s cousin, a tall, handsome, Troubled, grumpy, art expert Ben – now who could have predicted that one? (ii) Molly herself, who can’t wait to throw money at Thea’s entirely impractical scheme to open a gallery in Stroud and show Rory’s paintings herself.

With the irritable Ben comes his 7 year old son Toby. Toby is perfect in every way; sweet, articulate, well behaved. He Just Wants a Proper Mummy (not like Veronica, his own mother, who swans thinly around town discovering new artists….how very dare she?)  Before long Thea and Toby are making cakes on her Rayburn. Yes really. Because Toby wants a Mummy Who Makes Cakes. (Incidentally, most of Fforde’s fictional kitchens sport an Aga – but Thea, as we all know, is poor. Allegedly. ‘How can I show people that my heroine is cash-strapped? I know, I’ll give her a downmarket cooker…’)

Thea’s plan to open a gallery goes on and on…and on. Will she find premises? Will she be able to get all the decorating done? (Cue all of her student lodgers – led by the wealthy, and annoyingly named, Petal - arriving to help. As if.) Will anyone come to her show? Will the puppy die? Quite a page-turner…

Ben, of course, has agreed to help her (and also to ‘scout’ stuff for her next exhibition by taking her on a tour of art colleges’ graduate shows) – but he’s definitely not in the market for a relationship, no siree! And he even more definitely doesn’t want Thea as a Mummy for Toby. I doubt he wants a puppy either….

Whereas the feckless Rory does sound quite attractive, in the testosterone department at least, Ben – with whom Thea decides she’s in love after approximately ten seconds – just does not come alive for me. He’s cold, irascible, has no sense of humour (major, major failing) but does have a terrible temper – towards the end of the book this starts to border on physical violence towards Thea, but OF COURSE she sees this as manly and passionate, or indeed, all her own fault.

After totally predictable misunderstandings, fallings-out, sulks, arguments, etc etc etc, the gallery is ready (Thea obligingly doing most of the varnishing of the floors on hands and knees wearing only a shirt and her knickers…for how did she know Ben was about to walk in? How indeed.) and the show is - surprise! - a roaring success. Everyone’s happy, evil Veronica forgives Thea for hanging on to Rory’s paintings when she wanted them, Ben proposes, Toby gets his Mummy, Thea gets amazing sex, and they all settle down in a perfect Cotswold house with roses round the door.

Which would have been satisfying if by then I had cared a jot about Thea, Ben or even sickly sweet Toby, but unfortunately I didn’t. The puppy (being the only member of the cast about whom I did care) survived. But then I expect you knew that.

Lots of people loved this book - it seems to have divided Goodreads reviewers, with quite a few feeling as I did, but plenty giving it 5 stars. It just depends what floats your boat.

Artistic Licence by Katie Fforde is published by Arrow Books.